The Extended Steam Salon

[The Abiliegh]

She had taken a few bites in silence, letting the others speculate and talk. MW made her a bit nervous, seeming to know so much about everyone here, but his knowledge of time travel put her mind to rest a bit.

Somethin still wasn't right, though. Her stomach was in knots, and her head was a bit light. She thought maybe she'd had a few to many, when she's taken to the bottle, but she had no other symptoms of being heavily intoxicated.

Standing, she spoke softly. "I... I need some air. I'll be right back." She headed to the front door of the Salon, and did not complain to hear Captain Brandsson's footsteps behind her.

The sunlight outside was disconcerting. The afternoon brightness played havoc on both their eyes, but they both adjusted, facing away from the glare as the door shut behind them.

"Max... We're in over our heads. I need you to be straight with me... like you were straight with Billy."

"I don't know what to tell ya, Abiliegh." He said, matter-of-fact. "This is big. Bigger than big. I mighta triggered it, but anything could've, from what I can tell."

She still wasn't feeling any better. "I just wonder which of us was meant to deal with this. Of if we all were."

"Seems to me that everyone has got a stake in this. Everyone's got their part to play." He paused, pulling out the chronometer. It seemed to be whirring a bit louder than usual.

"It shouldn't be..." Mrs Cross took the time-piece from him. It seemed near alive in her hand, vibrating slightly and warm to the touch. "we should get back inside. We don't need trouble out here."

Captain Brandsson nodded, and opened the door for her to re-enter the bar. But as they stepped over the threshhold, everything began to go fuzzy. She felt the world begin to melt away around her. Reaching out, she felt the chrono-jumper fly out of her grasp. The last thing she saw before everything went black was Mr. Gunn. She screamed his name as she and the Captain disappeared from the doorway.

Everyone in the front room saw the door open, and Mrs Cross and Captain Brandsson begin to enter. Several loud booms echoed through the bar, and the two started to fade away. Mrs Cross's terrified scream of "Tommy!" echoed throughout the room, and as the door swung closed to an empty space, a metalic clink could be heard as the golden watch bounced off the floorboards. If examined, the hands are spinning nonrhythmic, and dates are appearing in sporadic order. It is not readily apparent to where or to when they may have been sent.

(Basically, I'm flying to denver tomorrow, so I wont be online. My brother is meeting me for our camping trip, so he wont be around after thursday. Figured we would pull ourselves out and give the story a little adventure all at once. The Captain, of course, was used with his permission. I will return monday night/tuesday morning!!!)

[OldProfessorBear]

The Professor (and sometime gentleman pilot) was taking his daily constitutional.

Which meant he was on his way to his favorite watering-place for a cooling G-and-T or two (or, possibly, three).

As he turned the corner, he noticed something very odd:a 1938 Buick Super-Steam Special, quadruple expansion, eight cylinder electrosteam, parked half-on, half-off the narrow sidewalk directly in front of the bar, and an abandoned Vespa, still ticking over, leaning up against it.

He  blew through his whiskers, slowed his pace, and ducked into a dark doorway just opposite.

As he stood in the shadows, the door opened and Mrs. Cross, the proprietor and a vaguely familar gentleman in ill-fitting clothing stepped out and held an animated conversation. Unfortunately, the Professor couldn't make out a workd of it.

And then ... they disappeared.

"Rum go!" muttered Ttss the street. He felt the Buick's hood, out of habit, and found it still warm.

Then an odd sensation passed through him. He shook his head, pulled out his watch, opened the case to note the time. Started to snap it shut, then, bewildered looked at it again.

The second hand was running backwards!

"Very rum indeed," he thought, as he carefully effaced himself and drifted in through the open door.

He looked around the place with care, and, satisfied that no malign influences were within, became once again apparent.

Not for the first time, nor the last, he was glad he had learned that little trick in the Orient.

"Clark," he said, "the usual please."

[MWBailey]

MW picks the watch up off of the floor, looks at it, and curses sulphurously. "Damn you, Pulcifer!" he exclaims, sighing and glancing at the ceiling. Good, no gateways from on high. "Damned idiot should have stuck to playin' the banjo and attackin' Mexican aerial warships. Tommy?" he walked over to Gunn and handed him the watch. "keep that, and I mean keep it safe. if you've got a box like rich fellows put a diamond bracelet into to give to their mistresses, put it in that and keep it on you at all times, or at least until Mrs. Cross asks you for it; or put it at the bottom of your deepest pocket and leave it there 'til then, but don't lose it. We might all go 'boom' and disappear otherwise. i don't know when she'll be back, but people usually do pop back in cases like hers, just now."

MW turned around when he heard footsteps outside, hand going to the gun in the shoulder rig...but nobody came in. Then, a person suddenly appeared, walking toward the bar. MW rubbed his eyes; surely the fellow came in the door just now... but he had simply seemed to appear partway across the floor, just where one sunbeam fell through the window, and ran into a shadow where the mullion strip separated one pane from another. I must be getting old faster than I thought, MW mused... Or...

[steampunkgrrrl]

"This is all too much." The girl slumps into a chair and tries to take in what she's been hearing through the office door. She decided to stay in here in case real trouble happened. It seems like she's gotten herself into a real pickle. "Dammit Nick, why couldn't you have just shown up for once?" She looks at the derringer in her pocket and makes sure it's loaded and ready.

Her father had taught her to be a crack shot. She could pulverize someone from a hundred yards back as well as point blank. He thought she would need a skill like that eventually. He never knew how right he was.

Walking out of the office, she smelled food and coffee. She asked Clark to pour her a cup and fix her a plate, please. Things were just beginning, and she was involved now, whether she liked it or not.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

As Mrs. Cross and Captain Brandsson head toward the front door, T.E. suddenly thinks of something...but he's too late...they're already out of the door. The thought was this; "Time's runnin' ten times faster in here than it is outside...steppin' in, ya might not notice, but steppin' back out would be like steppin' off a fast moving train..." Sure enough, as they start to move back into the Salon, a series of the increasingly familiar "Chronic Booms"are heard, Mrs. Cross screams "Tommy!" and the pair go blurry and then vanish! The damned Timepiece hits the floor just inside the threshold and sits there, vibrating slightly, goes all blurry itself for a split-second, then solidifies, settles down and goes still. Tommy exclaims,"Jehosaphat!"
MW steps quickly over and picks up the Timepiece,examines it briefly, then hands it to Tommy, admonishing him to keep it safe. Though T.E. doesn't really want to, he takes the infernal instrument.
It is slightly warm, and the various needles on it are moving randomly, and sporadically. He puts it in a hidden pocket on the inside of his waistcoat. The hairs on the back of the big detectives neck go up...he feels as though someone just walked behind him, but sees nothing...until, like a cloak opening, a distinguished looking old gent is revealed standing between Tommy and the bar. "Clark, the usual, please." The Clockwork Barkeep, clearing the remains of the meal, nods to the old gent, goes to the "Drink Machine" ( as Tommy has begun to call it, to himself) and quickly makes what appears to be a gin-and-tonic, and slides it across the bar to the bewhiskered gent. Obviously, he is known here, at least to Clark. The little country girl finally comes out of the back office, asks Clark for a cup of coffee and a plate of fish and eggs,( luckily, there's plenty left,) and Clark efficiently complies.
Inside, it's been about three hours since Tommy got here. Outside, it's what should have been, to Tommy, tomorrow afternoon. They're running out of time fast, and it's now pretty clear that if you leave the Salon, you can't come back in..."Crap!" thinks Tommy,"  ..an' I don't even know Mrs. Cross's first name..." The thought that he might not ever see her again bothers him. It bothers him a lot. He shakes his head, ruefully...it's been a long time since he's let a dame get under his skin, but, he has to admit, she has...and now she's gone. Gone, and who knows where...or when!
"MW," Tommy says, "You're the only one of us left that might understand this..ya need ta bring the rest of us up ta speed...we need a lesson on th' history of time travel...I've got an idea, but I don't know if it'll work.."

[steampunkgrrrl]

Eager to learn what's happening and where Ms. Cross had gone to, she leans in to hear the conversation.

[fireheart storm]

Ms Storm watched with the briefest of shocks when Ms Cross and the Captain diapered. Then she admonished herself, pressing down the fear and shock deep into the part of her where she could let it out later when she had the leisure time to do such things.  She Let MW take charge wit no protests, he knew the most out of every one left about time travel.  

She checks her watch and stands up to stretch, watching the gentleman walk in. Ms Storm traded her current seat for one where she was sitting between T.E. and Old Professor Bear.  She had the strangest feeling she knew him (or at least Mr Storm knew him)

'The Time Travel problems first', she thought with a frown 'my problems second.' So she leans in to listen to MW and TE

[MWBailey]

" Hmm. Well, Tommy, I'll try, but nobody knows the whole story, or if they do, I haven't heard it. As far as I have any knowledge concerning its origins, Time travel has always been around, in some way or other. The technological ability to build timeships, though, is only about 250 to 300 years old. about 300 years ago, a chinese astronomer-philosopher named something like Chang, or Chiang, either built a cabinet, or appeared in what is now Peking, stepping out of  a cabinet that had appeared suddenly in an empty space, into the Royal Court. He managed to convince both the emperor and his courtiers not to kill him for entering without permission (one assumes, partly because the cabinet had simply *poof!* appeared there)," and pretty much wrote his own ticket as the Court Magician. then he got back in his cabinet, disappeared, and was never seen again.

rumours about him and various other "wonder-workers", "chrono-nauts" and "timelords" then began appearing in tall tales and legends all acros Asia Minor and throughout Europe. Oddly enough, nothing like the temporal anomalous incidences we've been experiencing since about, oh, the Civil War era occurred until that time, for whatever reason. All of their machines were one-offs. the ones that have survived intact are alkl so wildly different in design and operation that each one must have incorporated the findings of one person's experiments.

Then, in or around the late 1790s, An English Lady, a Dame of The Empire, whose name escapes me at the moment, invented the first pocket-sized device; such devices are easier to build than timeships because of the relatively-small energies needed to run them, and and the tendency of such a small field to remain stable.

The 1890s is where Pulcifer comes in. Old Mad Jack, they used to call him. He was an "airshipman"  by dint of the Texas Army of his dimension adopting him, because he made a great symbol to exploit for their revolution. But he made so many enemies, he had to flee to Britain, and then to Europe.
A  little more shuold be said, since one or two in here might remember that banjo-playin' lunatic and his blimp, the Beau Rosin. You see, I bought it back several years ago, around the time when roosevelt was trying to get congress to order an invasion of Spain. Pulcifer was too old and too stove up to fly the thing anymore, and its been mine ever since. And its that blimp, with that scow hanging under it, that so many people copied their chrono-jammer devices from, and the source of most of teh instability  problems with the type that we have now.

And that's the problem with the time ships: their fields are so large that they are inherently unstable. the "chronojammers" that I speak of are the simplest, dirtiest, and easiest to build of teh timeships; usually, they're nothing more than a container of some sort (I've seen Wells Fargo safes, tea cabinets, armoires, one really weird police box, just about anything you can imagine somebody squeezing into to travel in --and some you wouldn't in a million years), with some attempt at a life-support system, and a larger but identical example of one of teh many common varieties of pocket-type devices (there're several). and Pulcifer' so far as we know, was the first to copy a pocket device and make a large one out of it.

"All well and good, but the simplicity of design of the Temporal Engine used in such ships, built without incorporating any safety features to handle the greater energies, not to mention the instabilities, make such devices dangerous to their surroundings to operate.

Now, Mrs.  Cross and the Capn did not fall victim to that; theirs was a simple case of stepping onto a merry-go-riund, and then stepping off while it was at speed. in short, they got caught up by the built-up "Karma" (for lack of a better term) accumulated inside this building. and Fair Warning: unless you want to return to the past really fast, and undo any forward travelling you've done up to this point, don't go outside.

[steampunkgrrrl]

The girl thinks to herself how interesting this all is....and how much sense it all makes. "So they just stepped off here and ended up somewhere else. Makes sense." The girl shrugs and sits back down. "Does that mean that people can't come in either, since all of this has built up? And how are we going to get them back? Moreoever, how are we going to get outside?"

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

"So...an hour in here is ten hours outside...wonder why this place is 'shielded'" muses T.E. "Hmmmm..faster, slower...it really is hard to wrap yer head around this. When ya go outside, yer really steppin' into a subjective future, so it seems as though times goin' by ten times faster outside, but it's really goin' ten times faster in here..." He trails off for a moment, then his head snaps up, a look of grim resolve on his craggy features. "Whatever..th' practical upshot is that whatever Lippy the Lizard's got planned, it's a day and a half closer to happenin' than it was when I walked in here. Okay, MW, here's the thought I had..you're the closest thing we've got to an expert, so feel free ta punch it full a' holes if it won't work.
We got a Timepiece.." he pats his pocket.." so we got sumthin' ta work with. I figger it's too hard ta go back ta 1790 and find this Dame Whatsername, plus I dunno how hard it is ta get across th' pond, and on this end of time we're runnin' out of it. But ya say the big ships are what's causin' all the "rips" an' anomalies, so if somebody was ta go back and stop Mad Jack Pulcifer from buildin' the first one, then none o' this would be happenin' now. Whoever went back couldn't come forward usin' the chrono...they'd have ta stay, and keep a weather eye out fer anybody else who got th' bright idea to upgrade their "pocketwatch"......that lets you and me out, MW...we'd be old, old geezers by the time we got back here to Chi-town circa 1948, an' excuse me fer sayin' but I don't think any o' these young ladies are up fer th' job..it could get ugly. Mad Jack ain't just gonna roll over and let somebody walk all over him, maybe he'll be reasonable, maybe not, but if he can be convinced that his invention is gonna rip a hole in th' Universe sixty years down th' line.....maybe he'll agree ta give it up. If not, then, ah, other options will have to be considered. There's only one of us here who can handle it, and make it back here intact." He pauses, and lights a Camel with his Zippo. Blowing a smoke ring, obviously with long practice, all eyes follow it as it drifts across the room, and settles, like the one last night, over Clark's metal dome, hanging there like a smoky halo over the head of a metallic angel. "We'll send Clark." says the detective.
"Meanwhile, I'm going ta see if I can ease out the door, and go stop the Lizard from blowin' everything to smithereens before we can get it fixed." He takes another puff on the cig, then says, "So, Tin-man, feel like a hero? An' give me a double-bourbon while yer thinkin' it over...before I lose my nerve."

[steampunkgrrrl]

The girl listened to T.E.'s explanation, and thought to herself. Nick didn't really care about her anyway. If she didn't help, there might be no home to go back. Tears stung her eyes and her throat closed as she hoped her courage wouldn't sell out.

"I'll go." Cursing herself, she said louder. "I'll go."

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

"That's mighty brave of ya, sweetie, but I've thought this out..Clark's mechanical...sixty years won't mean a thing ta him, so long as he can keep his gears greasy...you'd be givin' up yer whole future. Nah, I don't mean ta make light of ya, like I said, mighty brave, but this job's gonna be too big fer a youngster, even a scrappy one with a lot o' sand like yerself. If we can get this mess sorted out, who knows...maybe that young man o' yers will show up yet."

[steampunkgrrrl]

The girl wiped her nose with her handkerchief and tried to look brave. "Alright. But do you think it will really work? If we stop this Pulcifer person, who's to say someone else won't come along and try it again?" She sits on the bar and puts her head in her hand.

[fireheart storm]

"No one would be able to say some one won't try again, but if it did happen again or int he first place I guess.  That person would have to be stopped, wouldn't they?"  Ms Storm stood, putting her hand on the girl's shoulder.  "It's a game of persistence, life.  Who ever keeps pushing the longest wins," She looked at T.E. and said "if you want someone to try to ease though the door with you I'm up for it was well.  I don't have much to come back to now, but if everything goes to hell in a hand basket I'll really have nothing."

[steampunkgrrrl]

The girl smiled softly. "Same here. I'm not one to usually go jumping in, I never wanted to be a hero. But I'll help in any way I can." She smiled at T.E. and looked at Ms. Storm. "I'm good with a gun and can fight my way out of a corner." She raised her head up and looked in the bar mirror. She saw a girl, young and teary-eyed. Black hair tousled and coming down. She had to do this. She had to be brave.

[fireheart storm]

Ms Storm looked at the girl and said, "I'm of the opinion the best hero's are the ones who don't want to be hero's," she nodded her own hand falling down to her revolver.  "One can never have to many good shots around..."  She looked into the bar mirror, "Why don't you let down your hair?  you don't look all that comfy" she paused asking the girl "how old are you anyway?"

[steampunkgrrrl]

She looked in the mirror and began to undo the pins from her hair. It was a mess anyway, and nothing seemed to matter anymore. "I'm around 19." The girl finished taking her hair down and ran her fingers through it. The black hair fell past her shoulders and along her back. "The only thing I have is what's in my purse, but I can handle larger firearms if I have to. We used to go hunting at home." The girl offers a smile....shaky but still confident.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

"Yeah," says the detective, "Somebody else is bound to try it again. That's why whoever goes has ta stay...ta keep an eye out fer that very thing. Clark can watch th' papers and th' science journals, and step in an' put th' ki-bosh on any that try it..pretty much got ta' be him..he ain't gonna age, he ain't gonna slow down, and I can tell he'll do a good job of whatever he's got to do...won't ya, Clark?" "Most assuredly, sir...it is just the way I'm built," the robotic manikin agrees. "I've got a stake in this, too, you know," he states. "I've grown rather fond of existing..I may be made of metal, but I've got feelings, too." Clark raises a metallic hand, and depresses a place on the left side of his boilerplate chest. With a click, a small rectangular door pops open, and Clark removes a circular "banjo" rifle oiler from the cavity. "I believe the Timepiece will fit nicely right in here."
"Okay, then...MW, unless ya can think of a reason why this definitely won't work, then you stay here and look after Honey..I figger Lippy's still lookin' fer her...an' give Clark all th' skinny ya can on Mad Jack, and time travel, an' anythin' else ya figger he'll need ta know. I'll take Ms. Stormy an' the kid here with me, and we'll try ta put a big wrench in Lippy's plans." Tommy reaches into the hidden waistcoat pocket, and retrieves the Timepiece. "Set it fer a one-way trip ta 1890, MW. An' Good Luck, ol, buddy..we're all gonna need it." To the distinguished looking oldster who's watching with bright eyes while he sips his G&T, Tommy says, "Old-Timer, I don't know where ya fit inta all of this, but that disappearing act of yours was pretty impressive. Do ya wanna stay here, an' help MW hold down th' fort? If nuthin' else can be said for it, at least you'll age ten times slower in here." For the first time that day, Tommy's slash of a mouth raises up at one corner in what, for him, passes for a grin.
"Alright, girls, let's give it a try...go real slow...watch me, an' do what I do.." Tommy goes over to the door, opens it, and with the exaggerated slow-motion movements of a harlequin doing an underwater pantomime, moving just a hair at a time, eases out of the door. Once fully outside, despite his exaggerated movements, Tommy's stomach does a couple of flip-flops, and he leans for a moment on the fender of the big Buick, almost losing the fine brunch of fish and eggs. After a moment, the feeling passes. He looks back through the open door, and everything inside is kind of fuzzy. That, and when someone moves inside, they appear to be flashing from point to point like a hummingbird. The oldster takes a sip of his G&T..his hand flashes up to his face and back down to the bar in a blur. As the gals move over to the door, they appear to fly across the room like Olympic sprinters, only coming into focus as they near the door and begin to exit, imitating Tommy's slow-motion act.
Tommy goes around to the trunk of the big car. Opening it, he removes the signature weapon pictured on his calling card, and popping in a drum magazine, puts it on the back seat of the car. "Just in case." he thinks.

[fireheart storm]

Ms Storm stood and followed Tommy, hoping there was no quiver in her step like there was in her heart.  She reached the door and hesitated for a second she smiled at the other girl and said "You'll have to tell me your name on the other side," and she slowly started ot work herway through.  It felt like she was being held underwater, it was oppressive and didn't let her breath.
Don't Panic Flashed in her mind and she forced herself to keep her movements slow stumbling out the other side, then falling head over heals, coughing her world spinning like mad.  She lays there willing her body to reorient its self before she attempts to stand.

[MWBailey]

"Ms. Storm, before you go, there's one thing you need to know --" but she was gone! MW picked up the flyer on the newspaper rack beside the door, and wrote on the back, wadding the paper into a ball when he finished, and threw it out the door, making sure to move slowly enough to at least approach being in synch with the outside. Out on the sidewalk, Tommy was cocking the "chopper" and putting the saftey on, when a ball of paper came sailing out the door, and bounced against the side of the Steam Special; when one of them opened it up, it read,

to come back:
do not forget to smash Lippy's machine completely, ESPECIALLY the glass vials.
Good Luck,

MW Brantley
[/quote

[fireheart storm]

Ms storm had just finished sitting up when she got a wad of paper in her face.  She swore rather unladylike and snatched up the paper.  Un-crumpling it she read it, once, twice, a few times.  She looked up at the blur of motion in the cafe and gave him a thumbs up. Could he even see it? she sighed and pulled herself to her feet, dusting herself off.

"Let's set this right, shall we?" she asked hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

Sidebar: Edit for continuity---
My bad...I forgot to have T.E. give the Timepiece to Brantley, had to go back and edit it in. T.E. and the gals are going to operate in "normal" timespace, while MW sends Clark back to deal with Mad Jack. Sorry.
MW's note should now simply read "Make sure you smash Lippy's machine completely, especially the glass vials." If you want to go back and edit that in, it should flow smoothly, then. Again, apologies, I was thinking faster than I could type. This is great fun, and, if we can bring it to a successful conclusion, with a little editing, I think we might end up with a story we could get published in one of the Sci-Fi mags.- Thistlewaite

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

T.E. moves the scooter from the fender of the Buick, and props it against the front wall of the Salon. He gets in the driver's seat, and flips a couple of switches. He left it on "Stand-By", so the batteries have kept the boilers warm. The two gals, looking a little green around the gills, slide into the big front seat beside him from the passenger side. The four jewel lights switch over from the amber "stand-by" to the green indicating "ready." Tommy pulls the lever for reverse, engages the clutch, and backs the big auto into the street. Shifting back into forward gear, he glances over at the two young ladies. Their faces are pinched, but determined. "Ready?" he asks. They nod. Tommy lets out the clutch, and the big electric blue Buick leaps off down the street. "First stop, Chinatown," says Tommy. "I have got to get some clean clothes, and I've got a friend there who may be able to give us a hand."

[MWBailey]

Sidebar: Edit for continuity---
My bad...I forgot to have T.E. give the Timepiece to Brantley, had to go back and edit it in. T.E. and the gals are going to operate in "normal" timespace, while MW sends Clark back to deal with Mad Jack. Sorry.
MW's note should now simply read "Make sure you smash Lippy's machine completely, especially the glass vials." If you want to go back and edit that in, it should flow smoothly, then. Again, apologies, I was thinking faster than I could type. This is great fun, and, if we can bring it to a successful conclusion, with a little editing, I think we might end up with a story we could get published in one of the Sci-Fi mags.- Thistlewaite

Agreed. anything else on my end needs it, just let me know.
MWBailey

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

Tommy guides the big machine smoothly down the streets, and rolls to a stop in front of Hao Bao Chu's Chinese Hand Wash Laundry. Putting it in "Neutral," he says, "I'll just be a minute...hang here, Okay?"
Going in through the circular door, he spies his Chinese friend behind the counter. "Hey, Hao Bao Chu, how's tricks?" The Chinaman answers, "Hey, Tommy! I'm Okay, how 'bout you?" Tommy grins...it's an old joke between the two. "Here's your laundry, Tommy...got your ticket?" Tommy grins, and produces a laundry ticket from his pant's pocket. Another old joke. "Say, Hao Bao, whattaya say you an' me go down to Slugger's for awhile?"  The hair on the back of the big man's neck goes up, and his blood feels a little icy when Chu answers, "Sorry, Tommy, can't do it today. I've got a big job I've got to get done for a catering company." Exactly like in T.E.'s premonition. Deja vu . Hao Bao continues, though, "Number One Son can go with you, though." Number One Son is Hao Bao Chu, Two, but he's thoroughly Americanized, and prefers to be called Jimmy. "Hey, Number One Son," Chu calls into the back of the laundry. "Whattaya want, Pops?" a voice calls back. "Don't call me 'Pops'! Come out here and go with Mr. Gunn..I think he needs a workout partner." Jimmy Chu emerges through the hanging curtains. Unlike his father, who is wearing the traditional frog-buttoned Chinese tunic, Jimmy is attired in khaki trousers and a colorful Hawaiian print shirt. Gunn pays his Chinese friend, and he and the young man exit and head back to the Buick. Jimmy is in his early twenties,good looking and athletically built, with dark eyes, startlingly white, even teeth, and jet-black hair which swoops diagonally across his forehead. He's almost as good at the Oriental style of fighting as his father is, and Tommy's used Jimmy as a sparring partner before. He's had both of them along with him on jobs before, and they're both reliable, competent, and fearless. "Hey, Tommy, let me bum a smoke...Pops won't let me have 'em in the shop.." Catching sight of the girls in the front seat, Jimmy lets out a low wolf whistle. "Tommy, you old dog..." Passing  the young Chinaman a butt, Tommy says, "It ain't like that, Jimmy...we're on a case." Jimmy piles into the back seat of the Buick, catches sight of the hardware and exclaims "Whoa..Chicago typewriter!" Tommy grins, puts the Buick in gear and heads toward Slugger's Gym. "Bozo" Collins will be there, he's pretty sure, and with a little persuasion, Tommy's sure he can induce the palooka to tell him where to find Lipschitz. Pulling the Buick into the alley behind the gym, Tommy says, "You young folks get acquainted...I'm going ta grab a quick shower, put on a fresh suit, and see if I can scare up some info."